The Ride Was Meant to Be One Last Tribute to His Dad—But It Changed All Their Lives

On June 17, 2013, Michael Tabtabai spread his father’s ashes into the Pacific Ocean, got on his bike, and rode east. With his friend Andrew Hudon by his side, he set out to ride from Seaside, Oregon, to Plymouth, Massachusetts. The cross-country journey would be an epic tribute to his dad, who had lost his 11-year battle against colon cancer in 2011, and it would raise money to fight the disease that killed him. They called that ride Leave It On The Road.

They averaged over 160 miles per day, reaching many of their nightly destinations guided only by the headlights of their support van. Standing in the Atlantic Ocean 24 days later, popping bottles of champagne, Michael felt changed. He knew he couldn’t stop.

So he planned a new ride the next year, and another the year after that. Tabtabai started inviting friends looking to do big, meaningful rides of their own.

In 2015, Portland bike racer and producer Randall Fransen joined the crew that would travel from Portland to San Francisco. Fransen’s mother- and father-in-law both passed from cancer, his father battled cancer, and he battles ulcerative colitis, a disease with long-lasting symptoms that significantly increases his chances of getting colon cancer. The ride began just as he was coming off an 18-month spell of acute colitis that had made many day-to-day functions, let alone cycling, impossible.

Despite his doubts that he’d finish, he rode the 825 miles and found what he calls “a more singular passion than anything I’ve ever done.” Since then, he’s been a part of the core LIOTR group that completed the 2016 Mixtape Ride from Teton Pass, Wyoming to San Francisco; the 2017 Big Lap around Ireland; and the 2018 Stampede from Boulder, Colorado to Boise, Idaho. He’s also now an elite cyclocross racer, thanks in some part to the structure provided by preparing for LIOTR each year.

BICYCLING sat down with Tabtabai and Fransen to talk about the magic of committing to a huge crazy goal, the power of riding for a cause, and how combining the two can change your life.

Michael Tabtabai: It was right after I told Andrew [Hudon] that my dad had passed away. Andrew had watched his mom fight cancer. We had been doing these shorter, self-supported charity rides—Boulder to upstate New York, all around New England. I had always wanted to ride across the country. I remember him saying, “We have to do this.”

At the time we thought, This is the biggest one, it’s the last one. That’s why we called it Leave It On The Road. Frankly, it was meant to be the end of a chapter and not the beginning of one. But then I had a sense of, What’s next? The goal now is to continually challenge ourselves with a ride that has that same sense of nervousness and life-altering effect.

Randall Fransen, 38, Owner OF Mettle Cycling, Portland, Oregon.

Nils Ericson

Which LIOTR ride most changed your life?

Randall Fransen: When I came on [in 2015], I was recovering from some pretty bad health issues. I lost blood and my body couldn’t keep up. I couldn’t even walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded. The pain was tremendous and unmitigated. I spent seven months before the ride trying to get my body to rebuild red blood cells. I was finally just getting back on the bike when it started. The first day we set off from Portland I was very quietly and internally terrified. I didn’t think that I could finish, but when I did, I felt like I was coming back from the dead.

B: Why are LIOTR rides longer, multi-day tours?

MT: We try to commit to at least 10 days because by the time you've gone through that you do come out of it slightly different. You’re affected by the things you saw, the amazing experiences, the arguments you had along the way. You can't experience that in that depth in one, or two, or three days even.

Everyone does this for their own personal reasons. If you’re just coming to do a cool bike ride then that's not really enough, because we plan these rides so that you need more than your legs, you need to have your heart involved too.

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Any life-changing moments that stick out? Funny, dark?

RF: Yeah. [Both laugh] There’s a couple on both sides of that spectrum.

MT: That first ride across the country is still probably where I had the lowest moment I’ve had on a bike. We got lost in a thunderstorm and we realized around 1 a.m. that we had been riding in the wrong direction for 40 miles. The terrain was short, punchy, 20 percent uphills and downhills. It was freezing, we had already ridden 120 miles, we needed to ride 180 miles tomorrow, and we just added extra miles. But we were committed to riding every inch of that ride. We got to the hotel at 5 a.m.

There are always the moments when I have to dig deepest into the painful memories from my dad’s last couple of days. It helps me detach from I don’t want to feel my legs anymore. I don’t want to feel what my lungs are doing. I think about a memory that reminds me why I’m doing this and, frankly, pisses me off and makes me wanna ride harder. Sometimes that’s at a moment when everyone is having a good time, and I’m thinking about watching my father die. I got to say goodbye, I got to have my final words with him, and I feel lucky to have that. But that stuff’s crystallized, it will never diminish from my memory. So I go back to those moments when I need to.

RF: For me, it’s when we came into Boise this year, 9:30 at night, pacelining at 29 mph with our headlights on, trying to get to the hotel. We were working together, not speaking, and we’re just flying through the darkness. That was an amazing group moment.

How has this ride changed you?

RF: In realizing how potentially dangerous my disease could be, I’ve tried to focus on quality miles, instead of junk miles, before my life’s over. I have no idea whether it’ll be my disease or a bus or a distracted driver. I just want to make sure that I’m gonna feel OK about the time I spent, that I took advantage of what health and years I do have.

MT: To me it’s one big ride. Every year is just a continuation of where we left off. I can’t imagine not doing it. I plan my year around it. My dream is that it grows, and that it becomes the only thing I do.

What if someone has a revelation and decides they want to do a ride like this? Do you have any advice on how you listen to your inner voice and commit?

MT: Yeah! Definitely do it!

RF: Decide to do it and worry about the other things later. Coming up against obstacles is just part of the journey. Whether it’s logistical or financial, if you’re committed, you’ll find a way pretty quickly.

How to Land Ride Sponsors

LIOTR is sponsored by brands including Specialized and Rapha. Tabtabai and Fransen are marketing-savvy—Tabtabai is the Executive Creative Director of Google Brand Studio, and Fransen owns Mettle Cycling, a Portland-based apparel brand. But you don't have to be pros to land big-name sponsors. Here are Michael's tips.

Define your story. “There are a lot of charity rides out there. Be really clear about what makes your story exciting. Have the elements of great branding: a great name, logo, and photos. Those things sound hard but in every town there’s a photographer and a graphic designer who are looking for opportunities to grow their portfolios.”

Pick a hero sponsor. “For that first ride in 2013, our strategy was to convince Rapha to believe in us, even though we don’t look like Rapha models. Once they backed us, it was exciting for other brands to participate. Focus your energy on landing that hero sponsor, because it will set the tone for others.”

Make a pitch deck. “We always have one each year. We designed the deck to feel how the event would feel—beautiful. And we did training rides so we had good photography for it. We include stories about ourselves, our platforms, how often we post, the types of posts we do and don’t do.”

Keep it real. “Our guideline is, don’t partner with a brand whose product you wouldn’t spend money on. You have to be passionate about the product in order for the work that comes out on social media to feel real.”

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